Paula Modersohn-Becker

1876 (Dresde (Allemagne)) / 1907 (Worpswede (Allemagne))

"I work with a passion that excludes everything else," said Paula Modersohn-Becker. Her paintings are not just paintings: their inner experience makes the springtime of modern art sacred. One almost wants to put candles in front of them, to perform some sacred dance in the form of a universal prayer. Paula Becker's totemic, almost shamanic painting calls for prayer, anxiety, fullness and faith. If, as Rilke wrote, "the swan moves on the water all surrounded by itself, like a sliding painting; so at certain moments a being we love is a whole moving space". Paula Modersohn-Becker's spongy space turns the canvas into a "trembling image of happiness and doubt".



Artist's issues


Numéro 71






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